Sister Efner stood at the edge of the chapel’s last candle, the flame trembling as if it too feared what came next. For years she tended the small convent with quiet devotion: tending gardens, copying scrolls, listening to the confidences of the faithful. People called her steady, a woman of light. But light is fragile, and even the steadfast can fracture.
When the bishop’s inquisitors finally came, they found Sister Efner sitting in the infirmary, surrounded by jars of desiccated herbs and a single, withered bouquet of lavender. Her eyes were no longer the color of the sea. They were the color of a locked room. Sister Efner- falling into Darkness because of ...
Efner performed a ritual that was half-memory of the Mass, half-invention of a broken heart. She anointed the relic with linseed oil and her own blood. She did not invoke Satan. She invoked Justice —a blind, feral justice that God had abandoned. Sister Efner stood at the edge of the